8 Hours Well Spent

Time Wasted? Perhaps It’s Well Spent, an article in the New York Times by Lisa Belkin, had me laughing out loud at work today at the irony of reading an article about how we waste time at work as I am sitting at my desk, wasting time at work. Belkin states, “American workers, on average, spend 45 hours a week at work, but describe 16 of those hours as ‘unproductive,’ according to a study by Microsoft. America Online and Salary.com, in turn, determined that workers actually work a total of 3 days a week, wasting the other two.” HA! Obviously they did not interview me for this survey. I would say I spend 40 hours a week at work, not a minute more, but would describe 10 hours, average of 2 a day, as “productive”. She quotes Steve Pavlina, a personal development expert, as stating, “The average full-time worker doesn’t even start doing real work until 11:00a.m. and begins to wind down around 3:30 p.m.”. Again, the hours are slightly too far apart but I’d say he’s onto me. I have my usual morning routine where I pick up my coffee, arrive at work around 10:00 a.m., eat my breakfast bar while skimming the online paper, read my emails, write a few of my own, and by that time it’s already noon! I put in a good hour or two, consecutively or spread out in 15 minute spurts throughout the day, depending on how I feel like having my day spent, and I have all my duties done everyday by 6:00 p.m. I used to get everything done all at once and be left with nothing to do for the rest of the day, but I began to see no point of that since I ended up bored and having exerted more energy in pretending to be doing something for 6 hours. I also used to wonder if I was just an incredibly efficient worker who can get my jobs done in an hour what others need the entire 8 hour day to do. For some reason I doubt it. But since I don’t get to leave when I am finished with my work, and I hate wasting time as much as Lisa Belkin, I use my time at work wisely, by paying my bills, online shopping, surfing the internet, and writing my novel. Wasted time well spent indeed.